Before transporting Captain Picard and his assistant, Wesley Crusher to Pentarus V, Chief EngineerGeordi La Forge conducted safety and operational inspections of the shuttle, and deemed the shuttle was safe for flight. La Forge noted that the configuration of the thrusters were rigged in a way he hadn't seen before.

During flight, the shuttle's port thruster module exploded which resulted immediately in damage to the port thruster quad, the communications systems, and the guidance coupling. When the guidance coupling was damaged, severing it from the computer, the shuttle's navigation systems ceased to function forcing Dirgo to switch to manual control. With Pentarus V fifty million kilometers away, Dirgo, with the help of Picard and Crusher, piloted the shuttle into a controlled crash landing on Lambda Paz, one of the moons of Pentarus III.

After the crash landing, an examination of the Nenebek was conducted by Dirgo, and Picard salvaged the shuttle for supplies. Dirgo determined that that the shuttle's systems were destroyed which meant that he couldn't open a channel with the communications system, that the location transponder was not transmitting the location of the crashed shuttle, and that the replicator wouldn't be able to replicate food and water. The only supplies recovered from the shuttle by Picard were medical, as the Nenebek wasn't equipped with emergency rations. Along with the medical supplies, the survivors were able to recover a damaged tricorder and weapons from the shuttle (specifically four 2285-era Type 2 phasers). As the shuttle would trap heat, effectively acting as an oven, the survivors were forced to abandon the shuttle and take refuge in nearby caves. Before leaving the crash site, they fashioned a crude arrow on the surface of the moon from parts of the shuttle indicating the direction of their travel.

Later, the Enterprise-D located the wreckage of the Nenebek and the arrow, and, by following the arrow, were able to recover both Crusher and Picard. By the time of the rescue, Dirgo was dead. Both the captain and his shuttle were left behind on Lambda Paz. (TNG: "Final Mission")

According to the script, the pronunciation for Nenebek was "NEN-eh-bek". [1]

Spying one of his early books on her shelf before they had met in person, episode writer Jeri Taylor later told author Larry Nemecek she had come up with the shuttle name by switching the "m" and "c" in his name to adjacent letters. [X]wbm